Iron Grille Door Sideboard in Weathered Timber

Walk any old street in Rajasthan and look at the windows. Behind every one is a grille of worked iron, scrolls and loops and rings forged by hand, there to let the air through and keep everything else out and when the old houses come down those grilles are the first thing the salvage yards fight over. Somebody with a good eye realised a window grille makes a perfect cabinet door, air passes, eyes pass, hands don't, and this sideboard is that idea built out properly, four grille doors across a long weathered case.

Each door carries a panel of scrolled iron, ring-and-loop work with fleur finials, set into a timber frame, the four together reading as one long run of pattern with the case's uprights between them. Above the doors, a carved frieze runs the full width under the top, dense low-relief scrollwork picked out by the pale finish and the top itself is a broad plank surface wide enough for the books, the lamp, the pot that never gets used. The whole case wears a weathered, limewashed finish, timber rubbed pale with the grain showing through, so the piece looks less made than found, which is the entire charm of it.

For the dining room that needs a sideboard with some architecture, the entrance hall wanting one long piece under the mirror, or the person who has photographed a hundred haveli windows on their phone and finally wants to own one. Air through the doors, history in the iron.